


A Time For

by bantha fodder (banthafodder)



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banthafodder/pseuds/bantha%20fodder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dead are close. The Hands line the wall, silent and solemn, but it is not her they wait for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Time For

**Author's Note:**

> Written for roz

 

 

_"Sabriel," he said again. "You're alive!"_

_"Yes," said Sabriel, with some surprise. "I am."_

*

The Dead are close. The Hands line the wall, silent and solemn, but it is not her they wait for. She reaches for Kibeth to move the Dead along, but her own hands ignore her: they stay by her side and wait, like the Hands surrounding her. She cannot move. She cannot scream. She can hear only the shuffle of the Dead, the staccato of their procession as she breathes in the decaying stench of the never-ending parade of the Dead. The fog thickens, and it chokes her. It is too dark: she knows that the sun has passed.

*

Sabriel could sense the Dead. Eyes shut, she could hear nothing but a loud rasping. She did not understand the almost-silence; she could sense the Dead all around. She tried not to panic, but the rasping sped up and soon her heart began to race and she found that she could not breathe. She forced her eyes open and discovered that she was alone. Yet she could hear the rasping, the sound of the Dead walking, and she sat up, looking around wildly. There was no one in her room but her, and it was the sound of her own breathing that she could hear. The bandages wrapped tightly around her chest prevented her from breathing. She calmed herself, although her heart continued to beat faster than she thought it could.

She took the time to identify her surroundings, and it was with a dull pang that she realised she was in her old bed, in the Sixth Form dormitory. She looked over at the beds beside her; they were tight and well made, and the dormitory was empty save for her.

But Sabriel could still sense the Dead and, belatedly, she noticed that her bandolier and sword belt were missing. She cursed her inattention. The pain in her abdomen caused her to hiss as she struggled to her feet, and grimaced at the nightgown she was been clothed in. Her surcoat and inner layers had also disappeared, and Sabriel considered going to face the Dead in a nightgown with delicate lace trim, but turned instead and found her clothes still in her wardrobe. Sabriel assumed that Ellimere had not yet had the chance to pack Sabriel's possessions, before Sabriel cruelly and inconsiderately brought the Dead to her old friend.

Pulling her shirt over her head, Sabriel considered it unfair that she could have learnt so much, and still return to Wyverly to find her sheets clean and that her old shirts fit.

Sabriel breathed deep, and thought of the Abhorsens past, their blue surcoats blurring to form a great river. She walked towards the door, but just as she reached for it the door swung open, and Sabriel reached for the sword that was not there. Matron Swallow loomed large in Sabriel's memories as a figure not to be trifled with: stern and disapproving of sports that lead to girls injuring themselves. The matron was no less stern as she sighed and steered Sabriel back to bed.

(Magic, Matron Swallow has always claimed, dooms girls to a never-ending litany of bruises and headaches.)

Sabriel shook Matron Swallow's hand off her arm.

"I must," she began, but could not remember the rest of her sentence. She tried again, "The Dead are here," but the matron interrupted.

"Back to bed," she said, "and no talking. This babbling isn't good for you."

"But the Dead," Sabriel insisted, swinging her hands toward the matron, although her arms lacked the strength to push the older woman away.

Matron Swallow helped Sabriel lie down, and drew the sheets up. "You hush about the dead," she soothed. "They are not your concern."

Sabriel allowed the Matron's words to lull her back to sleep.

*

 _A kiss for the uncle who has known you from Death_ , and Mogget shifts from free magic thing to white cat to albino dwarf, eyes blazing and fur forming and reforming. Sabriel begs him to stand still, but he dances out of reach as his fur changes to black and Kerrigor laughs. Kerrigor laughs, and Saraneth has disappeared.

*

When Sabriel next awoke, only the light of the full moon illuminated the dormitory, and she could see shapes asleep in the beds either side of her. The bed beside her was empty, but perhaps Ellimere could not sleep. Sabriel rose fully clothed, and padded softly out the door, closing the door silently behind her. Not a soul stirred as she treaded down the hall; doors were closed and no giggling came from behind them. Sabriel pushed the sense of the Dead away. She refused to sense the Dead - it was her father's job to do so, and she continues to seek Ellimere.

The lower levels were a shambles, and Sabriel paused at the rubble. She watched a cat weave in and out of wreckage, and sneezed as she breathed in the dust. The cat streaked across the room towards Sabriel, and she shrieked long, loud and cut it off only when she drew breath to whistle the notes to summon a wind. She could think of no other notes as she reached for the bells that were not there and Kerrigor races towards her, leering and implacable.

A hand covered her mouth, and her urge to bite it was tempered only by Touchstone's whisper in her ear and the marks he drew against her neck. He murmured familiar things like Charter exercises and methods, but Sabriel's eyes did not leave Mogget until she was confident that he was Mogget, and not some Kerrigor-thing in disguise.

*

The coffin blows open and Kerrigor rises, grinning. Sabriel walks towards him, can do little else, and cannot even struggle as he leans forward, pursing his lips and plucking Astarael from her grasp.

*

It had been only two weeks between leaving Ancelstierre and returning, yet Sabriel was eager to depart. Two days she had spent asleep, and she feared for the state of the Old Kingdom without the Abhorsen to protect it from the Dead. Sabriel knew that Kerrigor was no longer a threat to the living, trapped as he was in Ranna's spell, but there were others to fear. She hastened her preparations. Food for the two of them, and perhaps for Mogget. Clothes. A way to transport the Kerrigor-thing.

The school was practically a ruin around her, but she could not find it in her heart to care.

*

Mrs Umbrade stands surrounded by dead students. Mrs Umbrade rants about Magistrix Greenwood and the school's reputation, and does not know enough to be wary as Sabriel reaches for Dyrim.

*

Sabriel walked through Ancelstierre, banishing the Dead and burning those who died. She blessed them with peace and rest, and wished the same for herself. She had hoped to leave quickly, but her role as Abhorsen was probably not bound to the Old Kingdom alone. Two days without the Abhorsen had allowed the Dead to wander far, but two days so far from the Old Kingdom had left them flailing and ineffectual.

The Dead, for once, caused her no great strife, and she wished they would all be so easy.

*

Mogget yawns and tilts his head, Ranna ringing softly below his chin. She smiles as he shakes his head to rid himself of the ghost of sleep, but gets caught in the echoes and falls asleep halfway across the floor. Sabriel gently moves him out of the way. In an emergency, this could be annoying.

*

Sabriel and Touchstone crossed back into the Old Kingdom with little difficulty. There were no men on the walls, and very few in the barracks. There was no objection to the Abhorsen passing through. Sabriel stopped halfway through the gate, however, and turned around. She walked back out the Ancelstierre side and, seating herself on a sandbag by the gate, began to whistle.

Whilst Sabriel rebound the wind flutes by the gate, Touchstone cornered a hastily promoted sergeant and requested a whetting stone. Some distance from where Sabriel sat, but keeping her in sight, Touchstone sharpened his sword until it glowed.

After binding the flutes by the gate, Sabriel stood, exhausted, and began to sway. She started to move further down the wall, but Touchstone moved to her side and stopped her with a touch. She looked at him.

"No Dead shall walk in Life," said Sabriel as she looked through Touchstone, and fainted.

Being of the Royal Line, Touchstone understood responsibility and duty. So he declared it his responsibility and duty to see the Abhorsen to her home, and lifted her over his shoulder. He strode through the gate and along the Old North Road. Sabriel could yell at him later, when she had been tended to, but for the time being, Ancelstierre could work with what it had.

Mogget offered naught but a snide remark and a nip at his heels.

*

Sabriel polishes her bells, carefully picking them up one after another. She tries to see her reflection, but the surface keeps its secrets. She begins to weave Belgaer, but quickly stills her movements. Sabriel looks around. She does not want anyone to know she has erred.

*

Sabriel breathed heavily. The air was thick outside the window but she pushed the thought that it might be a sinister fog out of her mind. The Dead were gone, and as she raised her eyes, she could see the Abhorsen's sword - her sword - in its sheath, and her bells in her bandolier. She felt the loss of Astarael, Kibeth, and Saraneth with every action, but since she had returned to the Old Kingdom, she knew replacements would find their way to her.

The thought that she would not receive new bells did not occur to her, for she knew she was the Abhorsen and would prevent the dead from walking.

She reached out and rolled Touchstone onto his back, before hoisting herself atop him. He woke at her touch, and grinned sleepily as he stroked her cheek. He refused to tell her his name, or elaborate on his Charter skills, but he rescued her things and led the cleanup and trapped Kerrigor-the-cat in cages within cages spelled with Charter marks, and he breathed life and she clung to him.

Touchstone is beneath her, sweating and naked, and as she grips his wrists and rides him she sees him, and does not flinch when he closes his eyes and looks like Rogir.

Sabriel can hear bells ringing the morning in, and she thinks they sound like Mosrael.

 

 

 


End file.
